In comparison with his great object he held the lives of other men as cheap as his own.

It was but too much the habit, even of the most humane and generous soldiers of that age, to think very lightly of the bloodshed and devastation inseparable from great martial exploits; and the heart of William was steeled, not only by professional insensibility, but by that sterner insensibility which is the effect of a sense of duty.

Three great coalitions, three long and bloody wars in which all Europe from the Vistula to the Western Ocean was in arms, are to be ascribed to his unconquerable energy.

When in 1678 the States General, exhausted and disheartened, were desirious of repose, his voice was still against sheathing the sword.

If peace was made, it was made only because he could not breathe into other men a spirit as fierce and determined as his own.